The Dead Sea -- Another Worth Visiting Place


Manasi Bandyopadhyay ( Née Chakrabarti )


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If you are in Jordan, please do not forget to visit the Dead Sea. It is  located in the Jordan Rift Valley, bordered by Israel and Palestine  to the West and Jordan to the East . The Dead Sea is a lake that  is the lowest point on Earth at 1412 feet below sea level. The  lake is surrounded by  golden-brown hills  and has  light turquoise waters with salt crystals jutting out of it.

The earliest  name of the  Dead Sea is recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, where it is referred to as the Salt Sea because of its  special  character of high salt content  which makes it a source for rock and sea salts.


Afterwards some other names were given to this lake. the Primordial Sea, the East Sea, the Sea of Lot, the Sea of the Arabah, the Sea of Sodom, the Stinking Sea, the Sea of Asphalt and the Devil’s Sea. At last  the name Dead Sea came . The Jordan River flowed south from the Sea of Galilee with full force in the wet season with reeds and fish flowing into the highly saline water of the Salt Sea. As neither fish nor algae could survive in water which is nearly ten times saltier than oceans (It’s saline content is of about 34.2 % whereas   ocean contains  only around 3.5%.) it was a death-trap for them. And the Salt Sea becomes Dead Sea .


This lake is one of the saltiest bodies of water as well as  the deepest hyper-saline in the world, at a depth of 997 feet.  This high salinity is due to the shape of the lake -- rain and surface water flows into it  but as there is no escape point , this water becomes captive to be evaporated. Scorching  summer temperatures and year-round hot dry climatic conditions lead to significant losses of water to evaporation  and the  minerals becoming more and more concentrated with salt prominent among them. This process has been going on for last for 65,000 years.


The  hyper-salty waters and mineral-rich mud have so many health benefits, that  people go to  its beaches for mud treatments and salt baths.  Residents of  Mediterranean basin  were frequent visitors for thousands of years. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), the supplier of a wide variety of products from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilisers .


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